Strategy of tension

A strategy of tension (Italian: strategia della tensione) is a policy wherein violent struggle is encouraged rather than suppressed. It is usually associated when governments, or security apparatuses within a government, allow or even encourage extremist groups to perform attacks, bombings, murders, and the like. In extreme circumstances, it can even involve agent provocateurs and false flag operations where a terrorist threat is outright invented or created. The goal in such strategies is that such a struggle will rally support behind the military or police forces opposing the radicals, to radicalize opposing movements so that they can be better marginalized, or to permit loosely allied extremist groups to attack enemies of the government. As few organizations would openly say that they are pursuing a strategy of tension, accusations generally come from opponents that such a strategy is being pursued.

The strategy of tension is most closely identified with the Years of Lead in Italy from 1968–1982, wherein both far-left Marxist extremists and far-right neo-fascist groups performed bombings, kidnappings, arsons, and murders.[1] Activists have accused NATO of allowing and sanctioning such terrorism, although this conclusion is hotly disputed.[2][3][4] Other cases where writers have alleged a strategy of tension include the Turkish military against Islamists from the 1970s–1990s ("Ergenekon"),[5] the war veterans and ZANU–PF in Zimbabwe which coordinated the farm invasions of 2000,[6] the DRS security agency in Algeria from 1991-1999,[7] and Belgium's state security service from 1982–1986.[8]

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From 1968–1982, Italy suffered numerous terrorist attacks by both the left and the right, which were often followed by government round-ups and mass arrests. An allegation, especially made by adherents of the Italian Communist Party, was that the government trumped up and intentionally allowed the attacks of communist radicals as an excuse to arrest other communists, and allowed the attacks of far-right paramilitary organizations as an extrajudicial way to silence enemies.[9] The veracity of parts of these allegations has been disputed; while most sources agree that elements within the Italian government were eager to use the terrorist strikes as a reason to round-up communists, the idea that the government directly worked with said communist groups is more far-fetched. In the same way, some contacts between the government and far-right organizations existed, but allegations of an explicit "green light" to perform raids and the like are considered less reliable.

Various parliamentary committees were held to investigate these crimes as well as prosecute them in the 1990s. A 1995 report from the Left Democrats (the rebranded Communist Party of Italy, PCI) to a subcommittee of the Italian Parliament stated that a "strategy of tension" had been supported by the United States to "stop the PCI, and to a certain degree also the PSI, from reaching executive power in the country". Aldo Giannuli, a historian who worked as a consultant to the parliamentary terrorism commission, wrote that he considered the Left Democrats' report as dictated primarily by domestic political considerations rather than historical ones: "Since they have been in power the Left Democrats have given us very little help in gaining access to security service archives," he said. "This is a falsely courageous report." Giannuli did decry the fact that many more leftist terrorists were prosecuted and convicted than rightist terrorists, though.[9]

Swiss academic Daniele Ganser wrote NATO's Secret Armies, a 2004 book that alleged direct NATO support for far-right terrorists in Italy as part of its "strategy of tension".[10] Ganser also alleges that Operation Gladio, an effort to organize stay-behind guerillas and resistance in the event of a communist takeover by the Eastern bloc of Italy, continued into the 1970s and supplied the far-right neofascist movements with weapons. Ganser's conclusions have been disputed;[2][11] most notably, Ganser heavily cites the document US Army Field Manual 30-31B, a 1976 Soviet hoax meant to discredit the US.[12]

^"Interview with Daniele Ganser"(PDF).(154 KB), December 29, 2006, on Voltaire network's website (in French): "It is a tactic which consists in committing bombings and attributing them to others. By the term 'tension' one refers to emotional tension, to what creates a sentiment of fear. By the term 'strategy' one refers to what feeds the fear of the people towards one particular group".

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